Lance Naik Hanamanthappa Koppad, a native of Betadur, a small village in Kundagol taluk of Dharwad district, is another soldier from the State who was buried under the avalanche.
Till Friday night, there was no official communication from the Army, and even the office of the Superintendent of Police had not received any official communication on the progress of rescue operations.
It was only after a private Kannada news channel started flashing the news that the people in the village came to know about it and gathered at the residence of the Koppad family.
Hanamanthappa is the youngest of the four sons of Ramappa Koppad, who passed away a few years ago. They live as a joint family, which owns three acres of land. Hanamanthappa’s brothers are into farming. Hanamanthappa, an Army man for 14 years, married four years ago and has a two-year-old daughter. He had visited the village six months ago.
Hanamanthappa’s eldest brother Govindappa told The Hindu over the phone that they had not received any information from the Army yet.
“Hanamanthappa had called us on Tuesday and enquired about all of us. We have a few acquaintances working with him, and they informed us that he had gone missing after the avalanche on Wednesday. We tried to contact him, but in vain. It was after it was flashed in the television channel that we came to know about his demise,” said Mr. Govindappa, whose son, Ramappa, is undergoing army training in Bengaluru.
